Methadone clinics vs. Detox Centers

What’s The Difference Between Methadone CLINICS And Methadone DETOX CENTERS?

More than a quarter of a million Americans are enrolled in methadone clinics,
where they participate in “methadone replacement” or “methadone
maintenance” to treat narcotic addictions to heroin or morphine,
or prescription painkillers like oxycodone, hydrocodone, OxyContin or Vicodin.

Unfortunately, many people on methadone programs can reach such high dosages
that, when they want to get clean for good, they have difficulty finding
a methadone detox facility that will accept anyone taking more than 80
or 100 mg a day. Also, many other people want off methadone but are discouraged
by the extreme discomfort and added time of withdrawing from methadone.

In other words, many people feel “trapped” by methadone replacement programs.

Fortunately, Novus can help almost anyone dependent on methadone —
including high-dose methadone dependence.

Call us at (855) 464-8550 today to get started with the treatment you need.

How Methadone Clinics Trap Millions Of Addicts

Methadone clinics do not address the real physiological and other causes
of addiction to opioids and opiates.

Instead of drug detox and drug rehab programs, which actually qualify as
treatments, methadone clinics use the heroin-like
prescription narcotic painkiller methadone to “treat” addictions to narcotics, switching patients from
the original narcotic addiction to another narcotic, methadone.

The theory is that, because you only need one hit of methadone a day, you
are freed from the constant need to find numerous hits of other narcotics
such as heroin all day long. Although you’re still a narcotic addict,
you may be able to get back to work or be with your family again.

The bad news is that methadone is much more difficult to withdraw from
than most of the narcotics it claims to be “treating.” And
the longer you take methadone, the more methadone you need, so the worse
withdrawal becomes.

The end result is the well-known “methadone prison” which can
last for decades, or until the methadone addict wanting to detox can find
a methadone detox facility, such as Novus, that accepts high-dose addictions.

How Government, The Public, And The Media Justify Methadone Clinics

As you read through these points, keep this in mind:

Anyone addicted to methadone is still a drug addict, and if properly treated
could very likely recover to a life completely free of drugs.

These are some of the justifications used for the existence of methadone clinics:

Methadone reduces the uncomfortable
symptoms of withdrawal from heroin and other opioids. That’s a no-brainer — of course it does.
Methadone is a narcotic every bit as addictive as heroin or morphine,
so of course, addicts find it easier to stop taking illegal opioids when
taking methadone.

At higher dosages, methadone blocks the euphoric effect of heroin and other
opioids, encouraging opioid addicts to stay off the illegal drugs. Another
no-brainer — but the heroin addict is now a methadone addict whose life
is still enslaved by drugs.

Methadone is very (repeat, very) inexpensive compared to heroin, morphine
and other narcotics. The government, which pays most bills for most methadone
clinics, really likes this point. Taxpayers, on the other hand, would
rather see drug addicts completely off drugs for good—the tax dollars
used for a cure, not supporting a lifetime of drug addiction.

The presence of methadone clinics is said by their proponents to reduce
local drug-related crime and illnesses from sharing needles. In some locations,
crime increased, and one of the best-selling street drugs has become clinic-supplied
methadone.

Where methadone maintenance programs are a tax-supported social service,
the state trades off the cost of the methadone and the clinic against
the perceived higher costs of drug-related crime and justice actions.
Studies have shown that paying to cure addicts now would save countless
billions of tax dollars in the long run.

“Addiction experts” have everyone convinced that opioid addiction is an
“incurable chronic relapsing condition” — there is no cure for addiction.
This attitude flies in the face of thousands of people becoming free of
narcotic addictions every year.

Methadone manufacturers, distributors and methadone clinics — whether tax
supported or private — are part of a world-wide billion-dollar methadone
clinic industry located in every city and town.

Why Methadone Clinics Do Not Offer A Real Solution

Everyone involved in the existence of methadone clinics shares the same
opportunity to review the evidence — narcotic addictions can be
cured. But they continue to ignore it, instead plowing millions of people
into a lifetime of state-sanctioned addictions. Essentially, the addict
is switched from one narcotic addiction to another — methadone.

Here are a few of the reasons that methadone clinics do not offer narcotic
addicts, their families, or society at large, any kind of workable, acceptable
solution to narcotic addiction:

The proponents of methadone clinics rarely mention the fact that opioid
addictions can be cured, and that methadone clinics are just prolonging
the agony of addiction.

Methadone clinics trade on the erroneous perception that methadone detox
is too difficult for addicts to endure, that drug rehab is hit-and-miss
and real recovery is unlikely or even impossible.

Supporters don’t mention how methadone worsens addiction — methadone is
the most difficult of all narcotics to withdraw from, and the longer you
take it, the worse it gets.

Methadone clinics also don’t tell you that methadone is more dangerous
than all other prescription narcotic painkillers, actually threatening
patients’ lives. Unlike heroin or morphine, you don’t have to be addicted
to methadone to die from it — the very first dose can kill you.

Methadone research and hundreds of deaths prove that methadone affects
heart rhythm among a predictable percentage of people, which can lead
to sudden cardiac arrest and death.

Special-interest lobby groups continue to push the line that narcotic addictions
are too difficult to try to cure, or in fact are impossible to cure. Political
representatives, and even the medical profession, have bought into this.

Thousands of “for profit” methadone clinics — and the pharmaceutical drug
makers — owe their existence to making sure there are lots and lots of
addicts. Curing addiction is not profitable.

Addictions to all the narcotics — hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine,
heroin, etc. — can all be cured through modern methadone medical
drug detox, followed by the right long-term drug rehab program.

Methadone Detox Centers Should Replace Methadone Clinics

Members of the public who know how methadone clinics operate and the sleazy,
illegal activities usually encountered around them, are calling for an
end to the barbarism of enslaving people to a life of methadone addiction.

Editorials in dozens of newspapers, TV studios, and radio stations recently
have been calling for the taxpayer dollars being spent on methadone replacement
to be used for detox programs and rehab. Instead of switching heroin addicts
to methadone addiction, it makes more sense to just put the heroin addicts
into heroin detox and rehab programs.

Even some governments, including the United Kingdom, are calling for an
end to the sentencing of thousands of people to years of state-supported
methadone addiction.

The state should provide methadone detox programs for the victims of methadone
replacement, they say, and heroin addicts should be steered into suitable
heroin detox programs right at the outset.

Although heroin has been considered the primary addiction leading to methadone
replacement, there are plenty of people on methadone replacement programs
who were addicted not to heroin, but to prescription painkillers such
as OxyContin, oxycodone and hydrocodone, all basically “legal heroin”.

The fact that methadone is even more difficult to get off than heroin —
some say as much as 2 or 3 times as difficult — only emphasizes
how beneficial it would be for all concerned to do away with methadone
replacement and just get on with detox and rehab.

Continuing with addiction instead of curing it is not just cruel, it is
dangerous. In Florida, deaths from methadone doubled from 2003 to 2007,
from 367 deaths in 2003 to 785 deaths in 2007.

It just makes compassionate as well as financial sense to nip addiction
sooner rather than later. Methadone replacement is a “hope for the
best” that somewhere down the road, the methadone addict will finally
decide to get clean.

Hey, if they decided to get off heroin and onto methadone, there is plenty
about drug addiction they already don’t like. If someone can confront
that addict’s problem, and really cares to help, he (or she) will
get that person onto a detox program, not onto months, years or a lifetime
of methadone addiction.

A Small Georgia County Says “No” To Methadone Clinics

While the barbaric practice of putting narcotic addicts on methadone and
convincing them that it’s an improvement continues across America,
the general public has become very disillusioned and, in some cases, embittered.

A typical example of the current public opinion of methadone clinics was
evident recently when the citizens of Dade County in extreme northwestern
Georgia blocked a proposed methadone clinic in their county. And it’s
the second time they’ve done it in recent years. These people just
don’t consider
methadone replacement any kind of treatment.

This time, the people of Dade County (not to be confused with Florida’s
Miami-Dade County) made sure no methadone clinics can ever get a foothold
on their turf. A groundswell of public outcries drove the county commission
to draft an ordinance outlawing methadone clinics anywhere in the county.

Commission Chairman Ted Rumley told the Dade County Sentinel that the public
reaction to the methadone clinic was no less than if it was “an
attempt to situate a toxic waste dump in Dade.”

“Not one person called in support of the proposed clinic,”
he said. “People just totally came unglued about it, not wanting
it in the county. I was averaging 15 to 20 calls a day.”

The council’s resolution read, in part: “Such a facility would
be inconsistent with and contrary to the public health, safety and welfare
of (Dade’s) citizens. Such a clinic would endanger the existing
enjoyment and use of the surrounding property in the county.”

Dade County’s experience is far from unique in America today. Hardly
a day passes that a news item from some county or town somewhere describes
how local citizens try to stop methadone clinics from opening.

Invariably, local officials are quoted as saying that drug detox and drug
rehab programs should be offered, not an open invitation to spend tax
dollars on years of publicly-funded addiction, along with the crime and
degradation that comes with most methadone clinics.

There is hope for a new life. Call to speak to one of our experienced &
caring detox advisors today at (855) 464-8550!

Life Of A Methadone User

Here are some comments from former Novus Medical Detox Center patients
now free of methadone, describing how methadone addiction and the methadone
clinics imprisoned them:

You get up early to drive or take a bus to the methadone clinic — life
can’t continue without it

The clinic is often in a rundown or even dangerous neighborhood

You stand in line with strangers — some who wear business suits and others
who haven’t bathed in weeks

When friends ask you to go away for a weekend or a cruise, you have to
make up excuses about why you can’t leave town

You can never take off for a few days with your kids to go camping or to
amusement parks in another city

As time goes by, you have less and less energy

The face in your mirror soon looks much older than it should

You worry because your libido is decreasing at an alarming rate, and nothing
seems to help

Being chained to the nearest methadone clinic is far from the only drawback
of these clinics. Some research indicates that methadone clinics are possibly
contributing to the alarming rise in methadone-related deaths—a
300 percent increase since 2000, substantially more than the simple increase
in methadone prescriptions.

The Problem With Methadone “Clinics” — They Aren’t Clinics

The main problem with methadone “clinics” is the fact that
they simply deliver another addiction, not recovery from addiction like
a Novus Medical Detox Center methadone detox program. They just aren’t clinics.

So why are they called “clinics”? Aren’t clinics a place
where healing occurs? Let’s be honest. The term “clinic”
is a complete misnomer, and the public is getting wise to it. The word
“clinic” lends an air of medical credibility to the place.
But since there are rarely any doctors present, not to mention nurses
or other medical personnel, methadone “clinics” might better
be called assembly line drug pushers, not clinics.

Additional considerations are crime, traffic problems, degraded neighborhoods,
and various public expenses.

Here’s what happens: Addicts, from all walks of life, line up every
day to get their dose of liquid methadone. Most clinics serve anywhere
from a few hundred to many hundreds a day, seven days a week. The process
takes as long as it takes for your turn in the lineup, then swallow the
methadone, and you’re on your way for another 24 hours.

If you miss a day, you’ll get sick from withdrawal symptoms. You
can’t travel out of town, go on holiday, take a cruise, or do anything
that takes more than one single solitary day.

Before long, you need more methadone, and as time passes, more and more
and more methadone. Eventually, you have a
high-dose methadone addiction that few methadone detox centers will accept.

You’re trapped in the methadone prison.

Methadone Detox Is What Reduces Crime And Brings Recovery

The traffic methadone clinics generate can be hideous. Cars, trucks, vans
and hundreds of people coming and going, day and night, 7 days a week.
It’s difficult to imagine until you’ve seen it with your own
eyes. Also, most facilities have dozens of addicts hanging around outside,
often selling their methadone to other addicts or trading it for narcotics
such as OxyContin or even heroin.

The traffic and the crime have been faithfully recorded on videotape, all
over the country, in numerous television news reports and documentary
films. You can begin to understand why the people of Dade County, Georgia,
hollered long and loud to stop it from happening in their backyard.

While proponents of methadone clinics say the practice reduces drug crime
in the area, many law enforcement officials say nothing could be further
from the truth. They see no reduction in drug crime, or in the availability
and abuse of addictive drugs in the area.

If someone wanted to improve on methadone replacement, the only decent
suggestion is to just forget it and get into methadone detox. Right now.

People Can Escape The Methadone Prison And Take Off Their “Liquid
Handcuffs”

At Novus Detox®, we successfully treat methadone addictions on a regular
basis. We believe that methadone clinic “treatment” is a prison
where addicts are not confined by walls, but by their dependence on methadone,
to get through each day.

Few methadone clinics will tell you it will be almost impossible to withdraw
from methadone on your own.

There is hope for a new life. Call to speak to one of our experienced &
caring detox advisors today at (855) 464-8550!

Methadone Detox Means A Drug-Free Life Is Possible Right Now

Novus Medical methadone detox is respected and sought out because it not only works, we also accept
high-dose methadone addictions — the kind developed by people who
have been subjected to methadone replacement.

Novus methadone detox program:

Accepts high-dose methadone dependencies and gets excellent results

Takes care of each individual’s special health requirements

Is supervised by a medical staff highly experienced in methadone detox

Provides the most effective medical methadone detox available

Cuts the pain and discomfort of methadone withdrawal to easily tolerable levels

Maintains and improves health with supplements and nutritional IVs with
vitamins, amino acids and minerals

We develop an individualized medical detox program specifically for each
of our patients, which means no recovery will look the same. Our delicious
food, nutritional IVs and supplements, and specialized detox protocols
are all designed to quicken the healing process. We understand that various
addictions present a number of issues for the human body, so we create
our IVs and diets to fit the needs of specific withdrawal symptoms.

Our process is all about you, which is why we have private and shared rooms
available for our residents. Each room is outfitted with a TV, telephone,
and access to the internet. We also provide educational classes that will
show you how the drug or alcohol of your choice affects your body. We
believe that to effectively fight off your withdrawal symptoms, it is
important to know what you are fighting against and what to be prepared for.